Alaskan High School Swim Team OK After Plane Overshoots Runway

A swim team is OK after a minor plane crash. Photo Courtesy: Dan D'Addona

An twin-engine airplane carrying an Alaskan high school swim team crashed after going off the runway in Alaska on Thursday.

The swim team was fine after the incident late Thursday afternoon at the airport in Unalaska, multiple news outlets reported.

The Associated Press reports the commuter airplane was carrying 42 people to a remote Aleutian Islands fishing community.

The plane went off the runway by nearly 500 feet and came to a rest just short of the Bering Sea. Two passengers suffered critical injuries and 10 more were receiving medical care, the plane’s operator said.

The SAAB-Scania 2000 twin engine turboprop plane operated by Peninsula Airways, or PenAir, went off the end of the runway under unknown circumstances, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer said in an email to The Associated Press.

The crash is under investigation.

The swim team was from Cordova, Erin Reinders, Unalaska’s city manager, who is also her community’s swim coach and was at the airport waiting to greet the team from Cordova, told the AP.

“At present, all students and chaperones are accounted for and are OK, albeit a bit shaken up,” said the statement by Cordova Superintendent Alex Russin.

Russin said Unalaska City School District Superintendent John P. Conwell assured him the students were safe.

“I spoke again with Superintendent Conwell who stated that the team was together, seemed fine, and were eating pizza. Mr. Conwell assured me repeatedly that the students would be well looked after and taken care of,” Russin said in a statement.

Read the full AP story here.

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